


Seeping Sorrowly

by Calesvol



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, F/M, Pre-Canon, Temporary Character Death, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 22:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14435358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calesvol/pseuds/Calesvol
Summary: They weren’t supposed to be. Yet, fate conspired against him even in this for the one he knew would never be his beloved. For he is too terrible, she too far as the moon in her name. (Sequel to No Time).





	Seeping Sorrowly

(Warning(s): T, temporary character death)

 

* * *

 

It had been months since the day. Months since they’d taken their relationship further than they intended, when he’d found himself lost in passions he’d never intended upon pursuing that far. Except—gods, he wanted her. Wanted her with a fain, bestial lust; wanted her the way devils dreamed of heaven while living in the fires of hell. To possess her, to make the Oracle his and boast her damnation to the gods themselves. It was wretched, this spiraling obsession. It consumed like flame and left nothing but unquenchable ashes and cinders that shimmering with firelight long after the pyre had cooled. It made him wonder, made him obsess.

 

Did Lunafreya truly see their affair as nothing? Through the lines of endless paperwork he ratified at the emperor’s expense, he saw her face. Gold in the rare allowances of sunlight reminded him of her hair, luster like maize. She reminded him of everything beloved and lost.

 

The phone at his desk began flickering with numbers on hold, foggily remembering who was the sole person who called upon that line. Reaching for it, he pressed the button of its respective line, almost pleased to hear the irate commander on its other end.

 

“ _Chancellor, it has been ten minutes. If you intend upon making me wait for a moment more—_ “

 

“Pray tell, Ravus,” Ardyn interrupted with a smug tone, “where your sister might be? These poor Graleans can’t get enough of her! Surely you understand the need for them to lift their spirits some through our _beloved_ Oracle.” He could almost hear Ravus stiffen, a smile twisting his lips, a wolfish impatience wanting to snap and growl demands.

 

The line grew silent as Ardyn heard the telltale shuffling of papers, a ruse to disguise the incriminating silence. “ _You know as well as I that I haven’t the faintest idea. Did it never occur to you to inquire after this with Gentiana instead?_ ”

 

“She is your sister, Commander. Is this a profession of truth I’m hearing? Or a declaration of incompetence?” Ardyn wheedled, brandishing his words like knives held to the younger man’s throat. He twisted the cord of his phone almost puckishly, leaning back in his seat, feet propped upon his desk. Ah, but perhaps he shared more in common with the commander than first sight would believe. Patience was clawed to shreds within his mind, wanting to dig into the recalcitrant commander most of all.

 

“ _I abide by what I say. Contact the manor itself if you are so desperate._ ” With that, the commander hung up.

 

Ardyn almost wanted to crush the receiver in his hands as a wave of frustration rolled over him virulently before he forced himself to calm through a stilted exhale. Would it be if it were so simple. No one knew where she was. Only that Fenestala had issued a press statement saying the Oracle was taking a months-long, holy reprieve into the wilds of Tenebrae with only her faithful hounds and the High Messenger as companionship. Hardly unusual, as Oracles in times past were known for their long retreats.

 

There was something unusual in this, however.

 

Lunafreya was tireless. In all the years she’d been Oracle, not once had she stopped for rest. If anything, whenever persuaded to, she’d simply gently refuse the petitioner saying the world didn’t stop for her, therefore neither should she.

 

But this? It was going on five months now. Even if an immortal had forever, parts of him were very much still human. Parts that looked to the scenery for the passage of time, to the sky for the arc and fall of the sun, and moon and its cycle. Yet, the moon that had become ensconced in his sky was missing and a hole that shouldn’t have been present, was.

 

Ardyn reached for his phone again, putting Iedolas’ secretary’s number on speed dial and relaying a simple message: the Chancellor would be absent for an undisclosed duration to conduct personal business and not to expect immediate correspondence until he was finished and his goals accomplished. What they were, even Ardyn didn’t know. But his foresight knew an intense need for closure.

 

While a feral one simply wanted the Oracle again in his arms.

* * *

 

Within the next few hours, Ardyn managed to clear his itinerary and relegate minor but numerous tasks he’d otherwise be obligated to finish to his personal staff and secretary, or to be put on hold until this mysterious task was completed.

 

At the air port situated atop Zegnautus, where its aerial fleet was stationed and dispatched, was where Ardyn headed by noon. He possessed his own airship, a grand thing issued to him from Iedolas years ago after his contributions to MT research had proved how invaluable he was. Red and accented in gold, it was impossible to miss from the skies unless flying extremely close to the sun at high altitudes—of which was Ardyn’s intent, bearing no wish to be seen even from afar. His pilot had his course, and knew how to preserve secrecy even from an airship.

 

It would be several hours before they arrived in Tenebrae. At the coastal city of Pagla that was traditionally where Oracles went on retreat, typically for religious reasons, for as long as they needed. Even from the sky could Ardyn see the white-tipped spires of Pagla Castle, only half the size of Fenestala but no less grand and beautifully cloaked in forests that cascaded down the mountainside. The furthest end of the Zoldara Henge before it poured into the sea.

 

Even if his suspicions were right, there was no guarantee that she would be willing to see him, let alone accept him.

 

Their last farewell had not been kind. Ardyn still remembered the keen stab within his chest when she’d demanded to know if he loved her, and the frigidity of her glacial gaze that reminded him only of a woman reared by the Glacian herself, even if the Astral had long been warmed by humanity.

 

His hands still twitched with the sensation of her, of embracing Lunafreya, of how she stood statuesque and cold. The man bit his lip in anger, drawing a bead of blood, wanting to claw through his hair as part of him began to regret coming here. Oh, he knew now what it was. Hateful, baneful thing! It hollowed his stomach and made it feel as though tar festered in his chest. It did, but this sensation made him aware, made him want to return were pride not sourly rearing there.

 

Ardyn knew what this was, and it was weakness. Defenseless, hollow weakness.

 

The sun vanished behind a thick queue of cloud cover the seeming moment he landed, espying Pagla Palace and setting his jaw. Dismissively did he wave the airship off, it alighting into the sky whilst buffeting winds whipped the tails of his overcoat in its retreating gusts. Soon, the din of its engine vanished and the man was left to find the forest trail that would lead him to the pearly white estate.

 

The air was thick with a residual chill of what could only be the Glacian’s magic augmented with Lunafreya’s. A barrier, even though Ardyn’s malefic presence bled sickly through it, was unable to be decimated by the gods themselves, passed through as though it were but a sheet of air. It was like traversing through to another realm, the vibrant and verdant woods hiding him from civilization.

 

Stray birdsong suddenly halted when he drew nearer, the frantic beating of wings and a tossing wind chattered through the leaves. It was silent; too much so. But the longer he walked, the more his own sense of dread gave way into inexplicable want and a winning smile that bespoke of vile intentions. As he always did.

 

He came upon a sprawling garden situated on the banks of a small lake, encompassed by beautifully tended blooms he could only see as the Oracle’s work. Even the trees seemed to bow away from the flora, beloved by Lunafreya’s touch in a vividness that hadn’t been known of before. At least, not since he’d been there last decades ago for her past relative.

 

Yet, it was what he saw that nearly struck him down.

 

Lunafreya had her back to him, tending to an incomplete array of sylleblossoms and white roses, the buds and blossoms arrayed around her as she planted them. A sun hat protected her from the harsh sunlight, working methodically to sow each with precision. But, it was when she stood that froze him.

 

From the side, even from wearing a baggy and dusty pair of overalls could he see the noticeable curve at her womb, of a distinct roundness. Brows furrowed, a sinking realization giving way to an anger. Ardyn stalked towards her and matched her rising gaze, the woman freezing in shock and dropping her gardening trowel in the grass before she motioned to turn away, but Ardyn’s ground-eating strides caught up with her too quickly and he seized her wrist in a vice.

 

“Let go of me! You have no right—!”

 

“No right to what, Lady Lunafreya?” Ardyn snarled acerbically. “Knowing that you are the mother of my child?!”

 

Lunafreya wrenched her arm free, glaring at him whilst her sunhat fluttered to the turf. “I didn’t know,” she uttered through clenched teeth, lower lip worrying as she fought back tears. “By the time I did, it was too late to—” She stared blankly at the ground, trembling, but looking no less weak in spite of it.

 

Ardyn looked away in the fashion when a man’s world had been shattered. His chest throbbed painfully, to think after all this time, he could…?

 

With Lunafreya no less.

 

He roused to the sound of her wrenching off her gloves and dropping them to the ground, red-rimmed eyes glowering at him mistrustfully. She heaved in a harsh breath, standing taller than her height. “I wasn’t going to tell you. What right do you have to them? You’re a monster. You’d want them dead—or worse,” she uttered bitterly, fighting back a fresh wave of tears. “You took everything from me! You orchestrated my mother’s death, the loss of my home, my own brother’s alienation—you’re not going to have them, too!” Her voice pitched hoarsely, hands balling into fists.

 

Ardyn stared at her blankly, mouth just slightly agape. Why did he…? She was right. It had been his fault, but not an inch of him had remorse for what he’d done. Not when the gods whom had made their Star wanted them and him to suffer. So, he would mar their precious creation. He would remind them of the power he wielded of his own, and through man. That his ungoldly prowess wasn’t enough to stop him, for he was deadly enough to bring an empire to his beck and call with barely an effort.

 

And how they would tremble. And how they did.

 

But, this…? Seeing Luna like a cornered she-wolf protecting her young is what snapped him. Not his anger, but it stabbed into a vulnerability he rarely to never let anyone worm their way into.

 

This woman somehow had.

 

“Lunafreya—” came his faltering protestation, feeling his strength sap from him at her rejection.

 

“Gentiana!” Lunafreya shouted above this chaos, that which brewed in his mind, a fell, chill wind drifting upon him as he slowly realized his blood was curdling into ice in his veins. He was unable to do anything as he froze over, what it meant, where he would manifest again.

 

Three prongs plunged into his heart and he swore he saw furious blonde impale him on that accursed Trident. Though he felt little pain, a single, black pearl like a tear shed from his eye as she did.

 

Before all became black, a single thought stole across his mind:

 

_Why do I love you so terribly, my dearest Freyja…?_


End file.
